Scaling office design through hypergrowth
Principles over prescription
While I was a Creative Director at Samsara, the company grew from 250 employees in 2017 to almost 1000 in 3 years! That meant that one of ‘side gigs’ was to help brand office spaces — which you can imagine happened more often than normal with our rate of growth. After a while, it was apparent it would be impossible to be hands on with all the details, so I developed some guidelines for the office team and architectural partners to help inform their decision making.
It might seem counterintuitive, but one of the keys to guidelines being effective is brevity — as opposed to an overwhelming amount of detail. Using visual examples and easy-to-digest tips tends to get more adoption — especially in a fast-paced environment.
Embracing community
An important part of our guidelines was to embrace the community each office was located in. During an early project, we hired a local artist to paint a mural in our Potrero Hill office, highlighting local landmarks and businesses. We also named our conference rooms after various local venues. This line of thinking continued as we eventually expanded out of San Francisco, opening offices in London, Atlanta and beyond.
